Many physiologically based models for mammals are known from the prior art (for example, Charnick et al., J. Pharmacokin Biopharm. 23, 217 (1995)). A physiologically based model for caterpillars is furthermore known from the prior art (Greenwood et al., Pestic. Sci. 30, 97 (1990)). The insect is in this case described by compartments, which each represent an individual organ of the insect. The “interconnection” of the individual compartments is obtained from the known physiology of caterpillars. The essential parameters of this model are the rate coefficients for inter-compartmental mass transport, which determine the speed of the distribution, and the organ distribution coefficients, which give the concentration ratio in thermodynamic equilibrium between the respective organ and the haemolymph, which corresponds to the blood fluid in mammals.
It is known from the prior art to use such compartmental models in order to describe an experimentally determined pharmacokinetic profile of a substance retrospectively, by matching the rate coefficients and the distribution coefficients (for example, Lagadic et al., Pestic. Biochem. Physiol. 45, 105 (1993).& Pestic. Biochem. Physiol. 48, 173 (1994)).
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a computer system for predicting the pharmacokinetic behavior of a chemical substance in an insect, as well as a corresponding method and computer program product.
The invention makes it possible, in a particularly efficient way, to calculate a prediction of the pharmacokinetic behavior of a chemical substance in an insect. In particular, the invention makes it possible to estimate the absorption, distribution and the excretion of chemical substances in insects on the basis of physicochemical parameters.